from the seriously? dept

We were just discussing how some anonymous developers had created and released a "pirate edition" of LimeWire, after the company LimeWire was required to no longer offer its software. Now LimeWire has put out an announcement demanding those who put out such an "unauthorized version" cease & desist. It does seem rather ironic that a company whose software was regularly used to access unauthorized works is now "complaining" about unauthorized versions of its own work. Of course, it's likely that the company is well aware of this, but has put out this announcement so that it doesn't get blamed in court for this unauthorized version.

from the yeah,-ok dept

This is hardly a surprise, given the earlier ruling, but the judge in the Limewire case has now ruled in favor of the RIAA that Limewire needs to shut down "the searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality, and/or all functionality." Basically, all of the functionality. Amusingly, Limewire is pretending it can still function without any... er... functions:

An important point of clarification, LimeWire is not “shutting down”, in specific regarding our software, we are compelled to use our best efforts cease support and distribution of the file-sharing software, along with increased filtering. And, that is what we are doing.

Of course, we've seen similar file sharing apps make similar claims when the judge's hammer came down, and they all went away. Of course, it's not like this actually means anything, other than the fact that people who want to file share have already moved on to other apps and services (mostly overseas) that are even less likely and less willing to work with the recording industry, and which will be that much harder to shut down. One by one, the RIAA has killed off the few firms that actually had an interest in trying to work with the industry, so everyone has gone to the groups that want nothing to do with the RIAA in any format.

from the so-much-for-that dept

While Limewire is facing a difficult future after losing its lawsuit to the major record labels, the company was also the target of a ridiculous propaganda campaign over the years, orchestrated by a few entertainment industry organizations, which tried to connect Limewire to identity fraud, by claiming that people were putting personal data into shared folders... and this was somehow Limewire's fault. Either way, the FTC stepped in to investigate and has now dropped the investigation, saying that, while the company could still do a better job educating users on how not to inadvertently share information, it didn't see anything that was actionable against Limewire.

from the adding-lawsuit-to-injunction dept

The RIAA is still fighting to force LimeWire to shut down completely after its legal win over the company. Given the nature of the initial ruling, it seems pretty likely that LimeWire is fighting a losing battle. Recently lots of folks were discussing the ridiculous damages that the RIAA is claiming LimeWire owes. On top of that, however, it looks like the music publishers have decided to pile on as well, and have filed a separate copyright infringement lawsuit against LimeWire. Honestly, this seems like it's just for the sake of vanity, or to be able to primp and preen for its members about how it's "doing something." The initial lawsuit will almost certainly kill off Limewire as a company. This new lawsuit can't kill it again. It's just a waste of time and money. Meanwhile, LimeWire users will have just moved on and will continue sharing files.

As you can see from the ruling, LimeWire never really had a chance. It basically did everything that Grokster did (and potentially more), so under the Grokster ruling, it's a pretty open and shut case. Of course that doesn't mean this isn't troubling in many ways. In fact, it reiterates many of the problems with the original Grokster ruling. For example, it mentions things like the fact that LimeWire folks knew that LimeWire could be used to transfer copyrighted works. But that's meaningless. Email can be used for transferring copyrighted works. FTP too. The web as well.

Either way, I'm still wondering if, based on the Supreme Court's ruling in the Grokster case, which solidified this non-legislative concept of "inducement" for copyright infringement (something that Congress had chosen not to put into the law -- despite having the opportunity), if it's possible to create a system for more efficiently sharing files that doesn't violate the inducement standard. In most of these cases, part of the problem is that these sites advertise themselves for the ability to infringe on copyrights, and employees at the sites were active in helping users infringe. As such, you can see how that's clear inducement. But what if a site was set up that didn't do all of those things, but was still widely used for infringement. Would that still be inducement? If so, that seems incredibly troubling. The law should not be set up in a way to outright ban a technology that has a wide variety of useful applications, and is used for plenty of legitimate purposes, even if it's also used (even if regularly used) for infringing purposes.

from the limewire-ain't-the-problem dept

This started a few years ago, when suddenly grandstanding Congress-folk started blaming Limewire for "leaking" a confidential terrorist threat assessment. Of course, that was misguided. The problem wasn't Limewire (or any file sharing software), but idiotic gov't employees who (a) put file sharing software on gov't computers (b) didn't properly wall off the software and (c) put confidential info where it could be shared. Earlier this year, suddenly, the issue came up again (again targeting Limewire). It was instigated by some aggressive entertainment industry lobbyists, who have concocted this huge story about how Limewire is to blame. And politicians always seem willing to buy it.

The latest is that some in Congress are planning legislation after claiming that "Secret Service safehouse locations, military rosters, and IRS tax returns" were available via Limewire (funny... those are the same things mentioned in the PR email I got from the entertainment industry lobbyist's PR person...).

Our Congressional critters tried to one up each other in stupid proposals, with one, Rep. Bill Foster, even tossing out the idea of passing a law to block the Gnutella protocol (though, he admitted it wasn't likely to work). Others just planned to pass laws that would ban the use of file sharing software on gov't computers (you need a law for that?!?) and to have the FTC investigate Limewire. And, of course, the real goal in all of this, politicians want to pass a law demanding that the gov't "undertake a national campaign to educate consumers about the dangers of file sharing software."

That last one, of course, is actually the end-goal here. The entertainment industry and their shills such as the group Arts+Labs (who was behind much of this campaign) have been demonizing file sharing software completely, and now want the gov't to help. So the best way to do that was to find some folks who misused the software, get some headlines about how P2P software "exposed" Obama's safehouse locations and then get the gov't to put in place some entertainment industry propaganda. Arts+Labs wins completely. It's backers include the various entertainment firms (bonus! gov't pitching their propaganda story) and a few tech companies who sell filtering/blocking technology (bonus! gov't increasing demand for their technology).

from the well,-look-at-that dept

Just a couple weeks ago, I received a ridiculous PR pitch from the entertainment industry lobbying group Arts+Labs, suggesting that a story that "hasn't really gotten the attention it deserves" is the "threat" from P2P software being used to "expose private documents to the world." The PR guy offered to help walk me through the process of downloading Limewire and finding such "exposed documents." Of course, what the PR guy left out is the reason this story hasn't received that much attention: because it's a bogus story that's been debunked for years -- but it's a favorite of the entertainment industry and its lobbyists in trying to come up with any reason to get Congress to issue laws against file sharing software.

However, it was obvious that this PR campaign was a setup: something bigger was underway... and, indeed, now we find out that these entertainment industry lobbyists have had a chance to bubble up yet again this silly idea to Congress, leading to yet another investigation of file sharing services, with a specific focus on Limewire. Of course, we did this already. Two years ago, there was a bunch of grandstanding in Congress against Limewire because some gov't officials had leaked documents possibly (though, not definitely) via Limewire. But, of course, the target was wrong. It wasn't Limewire that was the problem, it was government employees being stupid and setting up private government documents in their shared folders and poor government computer security systems that allowed this to happen. But rather than blame bad gov't computer security or clueless users, the government set upon Limewire as the problem (encouraged, of course, by the entertainment industry's lobbyists).

The PR campaign and the Congressional investigation didn't happen in the same month by accident. You can pretty much assume that the whole effort was orchestrated by these lobbyists as yet another misguided attack on file sharing software, playing up the ridiculous idea that it's the software that's responsible for people leaking documents, rather than user stupidity and bad security.

It's nice to see some in the mainstream press not fall for this bogus story. The LA Times notes how pointless this effort is, pointing out how the whole thing is misguided, and accurately noting:

Perhaps the real motive here is to find grounds to ban the software outright, which would please Hollywood but wouldn't solve the problem.

Of course, not all mainstream publications bothered to figure that out. Five days after Arts+Labs pitched me on the "Limewire-is-a-security-leak-problem" story, the WSJ published exactly that story, including (of course!) a quote from Arts+Labs, and no quotes from anyone who would point out what a made up story it is, and how it's been planted by the entertainment industry in an effort to create a moral panic against P2P software. I thought the mainstream press was supposed to be where real journalists did their homework rather than just parroting the story lobbyists hand them?

This lawsuit came about thanks to a ruling in a French court over how to interpret a French law. SPPF contends that French law says that any application that allows unauthorized file sharing is illegal. However, what was unclear, was whether or not this law could be applied to companies outside of France. The recent ruling found that, indeed, it's acceptable to extend French laws beyond its borders. This should be seen as hugely problematic just from a jurisdiction standpoint. It's difficult to see how France can claim that its laws should apply to companies entirely outside of France.

Now that it's been allowed, SPPF is suing three companies who offer software: Vuze, Limewire and Morpheus. What's troubling is that even beyond an "inducement" standard, SPPF seems to be basing the lawsuits on the idea that if your software allows any unauthorized copying, then the software itself is illegal. Say goodbye to FTP and, well, the entire internet next.

Finally, and most bizarrely, SPPF is also suing SourceForge, which is just a hosting platform for open source developers. The problem there (according to SPPF) is that SourceForge hosts the open source Shareaza file sharing app. It would appear that SPPF did so little research in figuring out who to sue, that it seems to think SourceForge is somehow responsible for Shareaza, rather than just hosting it.

Hopefully, the courts will come to their senses and realize, on all three of these issues, that the SPPF is out of line. But given the way some courts (especially in France) have ruled in the past, that seems unlikely.

from the so,-wait...-do-you-like-or-dislike-file-sharing? dept

Viacom seems to have a bit of a multiple personality when it comes to online video. It's famously suing YouTube for $1 billion because some clips of TV shows have shown up on the site, but at the same time, it's been aggressively putting its own shows on a variety of sites. Yet, for the most part, it's focused on having full control -- that is, making them streaming versions only, on specific sites, often complete with advertising. However, it looks like the company is finally realizing that a little uncontrolled distribution isn't such a bad thing. Viacom-owned Spike TV is trying to promote a new TV show by distributing a commercial-free, DRM-free download of the show through a variety of sources including P2P system Limewire. The company admits that it's just trying to entice viewers to watch the series on TV when it debuts later this summer, but it makes you wonder how the company can stand up in court complaining about YouTube, when its out there telling people to do whatever they want to help promote this other show. In fact, the folks behind this offering admit that DRM would have defeated the purpose, which is to get the show seen by as many people as possible: "We're trying for a bit of a ubiquity here, to go where the people are." Wonder if this story will make its way into the Viacom-YouTube lawsuit.

from the more-evidence-please dept

After being sued by the RIAA, file sharing app provider LimeWire fought back. Beyond claiming that it didn't violate copyright laws (by not "inducing" infringement), the company also countersued, claiming that the RIAA had violated antitrust laws in trying to illegally compete with LimeWire and other file sharing systems. This claim always seemed like a stretch, and apparently a judge agreed, dismissing the antitrust claims, noting that LimeWire failed to provide enough evidence to back up the claim. While it would have been nice to see the RIAA run into trouble on this point, it's true that LimeWire's evidence wasn't particularly strong, so this shouldn't come as a surprise or even be seen as much of a setback. It's just a case where LimeWire reached too far in its lawsuit and a judge quickly saw that.